title: Development of the palliative care needs assessment tool (PC-NAT) for use by multi-disciplinary health professionals.
abstract: Needs assessment strategies can facilitate prioritisation of resources. To develop a needs assessment tool for use with advanced cancer patients and caregivers, to prompt early intervation. A convenience sample of 103 health professionals viewed three videotaped consultations involving a simulated patient, his/her caregiver and a health professional, completed the Palliative Care Needs Assessment Tool (PC-NAT) and provided feedback on clarity, content and acceptability of the PC-NAT. Face and content validity, acceptability and feasibility of the PC-NAT were confirmed. Kappa scores indicated adequate inter-rater reliability for the majority of domains; the patient spirituality domain and the caregiver physical and family and relationship domains had low reliability. The PC-NAT can be used by health professionals with a range of clinical expertise to identify individuals' needs, thereby enabling early intervention. Further psychometric testing and an evaluation to assess the impact of the systematic use of the PC-NAT on quality of life, unmet needs and service utilisation of patients and caregivers are underway.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Health Research & Psycho-oncology, School of Medicine & Public Health, The Cancer Council NSW, University of Newcastle & Hunter Medical Research Institute, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. amy.waller@newcastle.edu.au
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Waller
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Girgis
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Currow
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lecathelinais
mesh_terms: D017028:Caregivers / Q000592:standards; D006282:Health Personnel; D006801:Humans; D020380:Needs Assessment; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000451:nursing*; D010166:Palliative Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D010347:Patient Care Planning; D010348:Patient Care Team; D010865:Pilot Projects; D015203:Reproducibility of Results